Friday, May 9, 2008, Jamadi-ul-Awwal 2, 1429    

Sindh reports two more confirmed polio cases

Karachi—Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI-Sindh) here on Thursday confirmed two more cases of polio among the local children bringing the total number, reported in current year, to seven in the province.
EPI-Sindh sources talking to APP here Thursday said laboratory at National Institute of Health - Islamabad confirmed virus among the two suspected cases referred to them in April.
The children confirmed to have polio mellitus included Shoaib (36 months) from Naushero Firoz and Ashfaq Ahmed (56 months) from Jacobabad.
Samples of the stools of the two children suspected to be inflicted with polio-mellitus were referred to Islamabad on April Six and April Nine respectively.
Investigations revealed that Shoaib had not received any oral polio vaccine (OPV) dose as part of routine program, however, was administered 19 doses during National and Sub-National Immunization Campaigns.
Ashfaq was administered OPV once as a routine exercise and got 20 additional doses during special campaigns.
“This reflected our failure to promote need and public demand for routine immunization among our masses,” commented one of the senior EPI official.
Serious inadequacies and deficiencies in motivating people to take personal initiative in approaching mobile teams, unable to reach their door steps during special campaigns, underway in the country for last several years, was also said to had turned amply evident.The other five cases reported earlier from across the province, were said to be from Karachi (North Karachi Town), Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah, Shikarpur and Hyderabad.
Sources said three of the cases from Shikarpur, Nawabshah and Hyderabad respectively were found to had their genetic linkage in Karachi.—APP